As companies leave the worst of the global recession behind them and economies with the help of stimulus packages from their respective governments are starting to pick up again there is acceleration in R&D and innovation as well.  News and blog posts in the innovation realm look positive with more frequent stories of spending on R&D is gradually picking up. Reports suggested that investment on R&D during the recession did increase even during the recession although at a lower rate than previous years. This post by Mark J Perry titled Despite Recession, Innovation Is Alive and Well. In the post Mark reveals

“In the face of a severe global recession, the world’s 1,000 largest publicly traded corporate research and development spenders increased R&D budgets in 2008, affirming the critical importance of innovation to their corporate strategies, according to Booz & Company’s Global Innovation 1000, the global management consulting firm’s fifth annual analysis of global innovation spending. R&D spending at these firms rose 5.7% in 2008, a slower rate of growth than the prior year’s 10% increase, but in line with the group’s 6.5% increase in worldwide sales. More than two-thirds of the companies included in this year’s Global Innovation 1000 maintained or increased R&D spending in 2008, even though a third of the companies reported a financial loss for the year.

However during the downturn almost every business had to look into it’s processes and make changes that would help see them through this rough financial period and whatever those changes were, they are not likely to go away in the near future. Mergers and Acquisitions in IP pickedup as many smaller firms facing closure had their IP up for sale. While some large businesses were also looking at trimming their patent portfolios others with a larger cash reserves were busy aggregating portfolios that were valuable and available for pennies to the dollar. Many IP departments were forced to look at operational efficiencies and as to how they can save time and cost and achieve better output. Innovation and R&D are no exceptions to this. Although organizations know that innovation is key to secure future success and will continue to invest in R&D, they are also likely to continue to look for ways to improve their R&D processes and innovate smart rather than by pouring capital into it.

Smarter innovation practices can be through using online collaboration platforms and getting customers more involved in the process. It can be through seeking strategic partnerships with other organizations working towards similar technologies to share R&D costs and speed up efforts. It could be through improving patent information sharing systems and having access to better information, making smarter, better calculated decisions and avoiding mistakes that can cost time and money. The possibilities are plenty. What is left to do is find out how to innovate smarter and strengthen the process from the inside and make it more efficient. After all innovation needs to work towards creating revenue and advantages for the business and not be perceived as a cost center or financial black hole.

Perhaps the recession in many ways helped organizations pause and take a look at how they were functioning and pushed everyone to seek improved ways to go about it. Though the pressure has eased, hopefully, the will to keep improving and making R&D more efficient will not fade away too quickly.

        

Every year a spike of innovation marked by an increase in patent filings happens in one or more of the several industry segments and creates a buzz grabbing everyone’s attention. This year one that comes to attention instantly is going green. The global initiative on battling climate change has gathered tremendous momentum this year as compared to the past and combines with several other environmental issues faced globally such as depleting mineral energy resources and waste the emphasis on innovation to work towards environmentally friendly technology and sustainable businesses has reached a new level.

A recent news article on Green Energy Reporter  said:

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted some 271 clean energy patents during the third quarter of 2009, which is the highest amount of approved patents in a single quarter, according to the latest Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) compiled by law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti.

While companies across the globe are stepping up their research and development efforts to step up discoveries of greener energy sources, finding solutions to the issues we face is not just restricted to energy. CleanTechnica.com published a great article on how leading footwear manufacturer Nike has been using innovation and collaboration to develop footwear and apparels out of sustainable and recyclable material while making it financially viable for production as soon as possible. An extract quoted Nike in that article said:

From Nike: The long-term vision for Considered is to design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials, designed for easy disassembly while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life. By 2011, 100 percent of footwear will meet baseline Considered standards, apparel by 2015 and equipment by 2020 – creating better performing products while minimizing environmental impact by reducing waste, using environmentally preferred materials and eliminate toxins.

Organizations have set themselves very tight deadlines and understand they are working against time when it comes to “going green”. That means the research and development organizations have to step up the innovation, look for ways to tap ideas from universities and external teams (Open Innovation) and move quicker. Researching internal generated IP and external IP is a key information driver for Open Innovation.

How you organize all the researched information is as important as conducting the research since you can quickly hit information overload. Having the right Intellectual Property Knowledge Management system is important for a better organized, more efficient process. Being better organized involves improving workflows and  improving management and communication of analyzed information to the decision maker in minimum time. Well managed patent data can help tremendously in the research process, understanding what competitors are doing, finding collaborators working in a similar direction, acquiring technology needed to speed up the process and more. You can then make internal workflows quicker and efficient and easily share data involved in the innovation process both within departments across the organization and outside with partners or third parties involved.  

The race against time to develop greener alternatives to the way we function today will require the best minds to come together in a quest for solutions and thereby compel companies to come together, work collaboratively, share information and innovate.  That calls for organizations to be more open about IP research and have systems that can scale to support research happening locally and externally.

        

In telecom circles everyone is following the patent infringement battle between Nokia and Apple with keen interest on how it pans out. Nokia claims Apple infringed on no less than 10 of it’s patents related to wireless standards with the launch of the iPhone and no royalties or licensing fees have been paid by Apple till date. What started out as a competitive strategy battle has made it’s way to federal court and the battle has intensified having the online users everywhere support their favorite cell phone manufacturers and having their own little war on blogs and web publications. The Silicon Valley Insider ‘s Business Insider published a post titled “Lame Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone Patent Infringement “ making their view clear in support of their home team Apple but it questions whether their stand would be down played had the tables been turned and Nokia used Apple’s Multi-Touch technologies in their line smart phones clearly taking away Apple’s innovative advantage. Calling a company “lame” for protecting or enforcing its IP may be a little over the top.  After all aren’t patents a strategic advantage rewarding innovation?

The cell phone manufacturing industry has always been one driven by innovation with the companies which have been able to think out of the box and innovate being rewarded with market share. There was a time not too long ago when Motorola was the force to reckon with. Although their market share gradually diminished and they lost out to other handset makers, their intellectual property rights portfolio has long out lived and out-performed their handset sales as companies today still license many core components which were invented and patented by Motorola.  Virtually every handset manufacturer has had to build their new products by licensing some components or technologies from others patents. What is not very clear and yet to come out is whether Apple missed these patents while developing and launching the iPhone or if they were aware that they were open to patent infringement claims and decided to ignore it till something came up.

In any technology intensive industry it’s not impossible to miss patents which should have been brought to attention during the research and development process or during product development and marketing. Patent research and competitive monitoring data is often managed by multiple people across departments using a multitude of databases, systems, software and vendors. IP research and analysis for new product development can get quite unwieldy without a comprehensive patent system and process for managing workflows and tracking patent sets and it isn’t all that difficult to overlook technologies and their underlying patents that could be very important to have noted. Here is an extract from the post carried by the Business Insider which can put things into perspective:

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 40 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of GSM technologies and its evolution to UMTS / 3G WCDMA as well as wireless LAN, which is also demonstrated by Nokia's strong patent position in these technologies.  

With 10,000 patent families to track and keep an eye on from one manufacturer such as Nokia and likewise many patent portfolios held by other manufacturers in the same space the possibility of patent infringement liabilities is ever present as are the odds of overlooking important patents which could come back at a future date in the form of lawsuits or claims.

Apple in comparison is relatively new in handset market and has already broken ground with its superb UI innovation capabilities which is evident from their iPhone product. The Multi-touch technology which has been patented is just one of those innovations and as Apple’s portfolio grows over time other handset companies will have to keep tabs on Apple’s patents and may find themselves with horns locked in a similar situation some day. While many will base their opinions on whose phone they like better or who their favorite cell phone manufacturer is, the battle is about innovation and the ability to protect IP. In sum, businesses that innovate should be rewarded for their efforts.

        

Access to the best possible intelligence is the backbone of any practicing law firm and investments in research and information enhancement capabilities often translates directly into being able to build strong cases for clients. There is no exception to intellectual property law firms when it comes to building intelligence assets.

Most ongoing engagement with clients requires a law firm to have access to quick insights from the set of patents relevant to the case. Insights from having records in a research and analysis platform can immensely help the engagement at different stages.

Here is a quick summary of how patent analysis tools can assist external attorneys in their client engagements:

• Firms can efficiently manage IP records that are being researched as part of different client engagements. Searches being done internally or being received from external service providers can be integrated into a common portfolio where the attorney can conduct finer review, refinement and analysis.

•  Attorneys can quickly open these portfolios in front of a client during a meeting to back up the advise or insight being given.

• Patent analysis tools can help attorneys focus on the legal review aspect and spend less time in preparing data and results to to support ongoing litigations.

• For most clients, patent text is often quite raw and technical in nature and perhaps not suitable when making a clear statement. Solutions with good analytics and reporting capabilities help present the data in a very clear graphical or tabular format which helps law firms bring out the facts plain and simple in a fashion that makes sense to end users.

• Advanced Search Capabilities in tools like Patent iNSIGHT Pro, include features such as SLART (Simultaneous left and right truncation), Approximate searching, Quick similarity matching between Claims across full text of other records can be very useful when conducting infringement and patentability studies.

• Tools such as keyword generation and clustering that summarize very specific words, sentences, phrases and even topics within patents could offer a huge advantage when drafting new product application in a congested technology space. ( Here is an earlier article that spoke about how keyword analysis can be done on claims.)

• Ability to narrow down and efficiently analyze the right patent set  can help conduct preliminary research before filing for new applications for clients. It allows law firms to know of any objections or obstacles patent officers might have even before starting the application process.

• Many small and  mid-sized technology firms that do not have internal IP research capabilities increasingly rely on external counsel for advice on overall IP strategy. Having the right tools to detect infringement, monitor competitor information, study trends, track recent activity and gather crucial facts is critical for such engagements.

• Ongoing Litigation activity also requires data to be analyzed and presented suitably in the court as evidence to back a claim.

Access to intellectual property and patent information per se is not difficult. Being able to have quick access and answers to very specific questions and being able to retrieve facts with speed and ease is what can offer IP and patent law firms the upper hand in their daily practice and the right patent data analysis software can help unlock this advantage.  

 

        

Patent analysis tools though all geared to deliver information and intelligence around patents are often different in terms of their features and capabilities. How do you know what features to look for in a solution that would help your organization? Here is a brief overview of the various important features found in most comprehensive patent data analysis tools and  what components to look out for during the evaluation process.

Search Capabilities

In most cases the search has already been done on a database, so why would you want search in an analysis solution? Searching is usually a requirement for custom portfolio categorization and further its critical when conducting deeper analysis such as infringement or FTO. Even when looking at a chart, its important to be able to immediately drill-down from the chart and search through the segmented portion to get to the answer or insight you seek. Finally, many a time you have your custom fields such as  Docket Ids, tags, comments etc associated with each record and you would like to include these in your search.

Patent Text Mining functions

When working with sets of 10000 records or more if you want to quickly understand what locate topics of interest or sometimes even understand which topics are prominent across the set and what sub-topics they are associated with, a powerful tunable auto-categorization engine is a must.Solutions that are created specifically for mining and clustering patent text are better suited than more general text mining solutions. Generating keyword lists and using such list for statistical analysis is another popular method used to gain insights on trends across companies, inventors and their patents.

Analytics Capabilities

Some of the capabilities that should be covered are co-occurrence matrices, generating top 10/20/50 lists and  citation analytics. Together they help analyze relationships and spot trends within a certain space and lifecycles of technologies and more. Drilling-down to the actual patents from any of the functions is key.  It’s always good to get a few analytics questions that your organization has, tested and verified using the analytics capabilities so that you are sure if the solution is up to the task of handling your patent intelligence needs.

Charting and Visualization

Converting the results from patent analysis into a powerful visual or graphical representation with ease is a definite must. In many cases exporting visuals to image files is  critical so that they can be reused in your reports or power-points. A good visualization and reporting component helps convey the insight easily without any need for explanation. Powerful visuals necessitate actions from the information consumers typically senior management and result in swift decision making.

Reporting

Generating different styles of reports to suit varying needs across an organization is perhaps the most common activity. Support for a wide range of flexible report types is useful with output format as word or excel so that the user can modify the report as per needs after it has been generated.

User Interface & Ease of Use

There is always a fine balance between having a feature loaded analytics software tools  packed to the brim with options and one that is easy to use even for  someone with relatively little experience of patent information. A good solution in this respect is one that has a relatively easy to use user interface which one can get familiar with in a short time and at the same time have the flexibility and options to allow the user to customize features, options and the environment that they will be working with regularly when any patent analysis has to be done. A very easy to use interface may not always give you that flexibility and range of customization while an extremely complex interface may defeat the purpose and make the process of analyzing data more tedious rather than easier. Look out for an interface which gives you both ease of use along with flexibility of options.

Apart from the above some of the other capabilities to look for are data export features, associating your own custom fields with patent data, rating or scoring system and performance at 10000+ record levels.

        

A common challenge we have seen across organizations who have access to reliable IP information and intelligence from various patent databases but find it overwhelming to integrate, manage large volumes of patent data, organise various ongoing research and investigation projects and to quickly locate answers to their questions. The solution to this lies in having a comprehensive patent research and analysis platform which can make it most of your activities much simpler. Here is a 60 second Slideshare presentation which highlights this challenge. Be sure to catch the link to our 7 minute webcast video at the end of this presentation!

 

        

It’s everywhere! Blogs are buzzing with opinions and views on it, Twitter is flowing with tweets and references to it and IP professionals, innovators and the software industry are glued to  In re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw v. Kappos  where the battle for patent rights for software and in particular business methods has turned into a war of sorts.

Some of the large stalwarts in software such as IBM, Yahoo, Accenture among many have shown strong support for extensive patent rights for software.  Several other smaller software firms, developers and organizations like the Free Software Foundation see software patenting as detrimental to progress and future of the software technology industry. Gene Quinn of IPWatchDog.com in his post went a somewhat fresh route and not just backed the need for software patents but also insisted that star-ups and smaller companies have a lot to gain from filing patents for their software technology in his recent post  “Why All Small Businesses Need Software Patents”. The battle on whether software patents should be allowed or not is a tough one with arguments both for and against this idea.

Those against it argue software code is logic and mathematical and the current patent system is just not equipped to handle such an issue. It’s almost like Twitter can make a claim they invented the “What are you doing now?” component of the application which allows people to update what they are doing through their software and claim “this is code” they used and it should be protected from others using their idea. Someone like Facebook however could claim that they already had this feature as part of their application where people could update what they were doing and share it with friends long before Twitter and their code though different was the original claim to this innovation. The arguments can go on endlessly and further innovation and development of software can be hampered if every single software component some developer programmed were to be patented and off-limits to other software not to mention how much more expensive software could become if every such component had to be licensed to create a working application.

On the other hand there is very little advantage for a true innovator or first mover in the software field and very little protection from the large players. For example if a smart developer invents an algorithm which can help identify and recognize objects and details in graphic images like photos and wants to monetize this through building a full application and creating a start-up, it could be just a matter of time before some large player like Flickr or Microsoft discover this and have their R&D departments replicate the technology perhaps with different code. In this system, those with the marketing might or large pockets to buy smaller players benefit without the real innovators being rewarded proportionately. That alone makes a fairly strong case for software patenting. 

Whichever side you take, there are compelling arguments and there is no doubt that if a race for patenting software inventions starts, it will have a long term impact on the industry. It could change the way we develop software or at least the approach development. It would mean rather than simply checking for copyrights and licenses for certain applications or components, businesses will now have to study and analyze all patent sets around their project to look out for liabilities and possible infringement cases before getting behind the screen to start coding. It’s still important to consider the software industry can’t easily be compared to the pharmaceutical industry or the automobile industry where patenting and IP protection have been an inherent part of their world. Yet, this new industry has developed at lightning speed and the stakes are high for everyone involved. Though this battle is not over, the way it finally turns out will depend heavily on public view and everyone’s opinion.

So what is your take on it? Should extensive software patenting rights be granted? How would you see this battle resolved?

        

Management of technology and research relies on being able to make the right decisions at the right time which in turn depends on the quick availability of reliable information. Whether deciding on strategy like what direction the innovation and research arm of the business should take and which are the areas the competition has left room for improvement on to tackling issues like finding the right people to develop a certain technology or to license a component from, the management responsible for products, research, development and technology need a constant birds eye view of not just their own IP assets but also a clear perspective of the competition and the wider technology landscape to steer the business in the right direction. This landscape however is constantly evolving with others in the market also on a quest to innovate and develop and protect their intellectual property along the way creating the need to have access to fresh information promptly when needed.

From what we have observed, the common challenges that companies face with developing a robust process of IP information delivery to management for decision making are:

• They have access to a large amount of patent data in the form of database subscriptions, downloaded documents and online sources but it's unorganized and every time they need to analyze the data for a new question or requirement management asks, they need to search through the data, gather the relevant documents and pages and then locate what they are looking for which is a long process that is often repeated.
• They have a lot of patent data related to their technologies or domain but find it challenging consolidating all the right data so they can start analyzing it and present only what is relevant to the managements questions.
• They find what they are looking for after analyzing the patent sets required to answer questions and they understand the answers but find it challenging to present it quickly and simply to management in a form that they can understand as clearly. They find communicating what they see within the patent sets to others difficult.
• The time taken to process all the data and generate answers is often too long which is why they prefer going by existing reports or previous information which may be available online through searching websites rather than generating fresh reports from the latest databases on demand.

For example, let's assume a pharmaceutical company has had plans for quite some time to develop a certain drug for a specific heart disease made some breakthrough but came across delays in the process of testing and clinical trials. In the few years the drug was under testing and not ready to hit the market there is a possibility that others may have been pursuing a similar direction of research and new patents may have come into force since creating hurdles for the launch of the drug. The management can't rely solely on what they knew at the time they started the research. They need quick access to fresh information to see the road ahead at every stage of the technology management process and make decisions. That view of the technology landscape they need exists in patent databases but needs text mining and analytic support to bring out that clear perspective needed for them to make those decisions.

At any given time in the process, management may need some specific questions they need answers to quickly to make their call. What are the competing technologies in their domain? How many other businesses are interested in this technology? Which markets already have players for this technology and where are the gaps that can be filled? Where are the potential licensing opportunities for what we develop? Who are the researchers or innovators who can help us develop what we are looking to create? These are just some examples of questions management need answers for and turn to their patent information to have them answered. Through a clear cut process of:

Search & Retrieval > Clustering > Data Clean Up > Analysis > Report Generation

Vast amounts of patent data can be mined, queried and analyzed and converted into precise visual reports that are easy to comprehend in a matter of minutes. Patent analysis software which can process this allows for quick process of intelligence delivery to upper management whenever needed. As useful as the process is to management, it can prove just as valuable to scientists, innovators researchers and product development teams to present their suggestions and cases for certain decisions and being able to back it up with visual presentations and valuable insights gathered from the data.

Equipped with the right software, the challenges of being able to generate and deliver decision making intelligence to management as well as the technology and research teams can easily be overcome. We all tend to rely on what is easily available. Once the right information is made easy and available, relying on fresh reports and insights becomes a regular practice and the technology management function becomes that much more effective.

        

September 18th 2009 marked the end of a two day international symposium for IP heads by WIPO. Based on the 2009 World Intellectual Property Indicators report by WIPO which was also recently released we can only guess there were a number of important issues to discuss including the impact of the global economic crisis and recession on the filing of new patents across patent offices around the world. Though the report doesn’t  indicate exact figures, it does mention there was a decrease in the total number of patents filed for the year 2008 although over 760,000 patents were issued during the year and 1.85 million patents filed. Surprisingly, ASIA was more resilient and has been seeing steady growth in South Korea and China which grew 23.9%.

The patent statistics within the report create an insight into the global trends in terms of innovation and highlight several interesting facts around patent activity around the world. This information is particularly interesting for us at Patent iNSIGHT Pro since we work with patent data analysis, patent reports and statistics every day. These are the kind of findings which give businesses and innovators the insight needed to know what is going on around the world of intellectual property. It helps draw visible conclusions based on analyzing thousands and even millions of patents and present the findings in a simple easy to understand reports and graphs. Each finding implies something  useful for some business or innovator around the world based on their field or business.  On their own, there are plenty of interesting facts published in this year’s report which you can read here. As the name of the report suggests, the value lies in what the findings of the data analysis indicates and what it implies to your business.  Some of the interesting statistics published in the 2009 WIPO report with regards to patents include:

"The five largest patent offices (China, European Patent Office, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America) accounted for 69% of total resident filings and 81.5% of non-resident filings in 2007. The high ratio of non-resident filings compared to resident filings is partly due to the fact that all patent filings at the EPO are considered as non-resident filings.

In 2007, the largest number of resident filings originated from Japan, the United States of America, China and the Republic of Korea. Between 2003 and 2007, resident filings of Japan declined by 1.8% per year. In contrast, resident filings of China and the Republic of Korea grew by 28.1% and 9.3% respectively.

There has been a steady increase in the total number of patent families during the past 15 years. The total number of patent families (based on first filing date) in 2006 amounted to 946,498, representing an 8% increase from the previous year.

During the period 2002-2005, patent applications in the fields of computer technology, telecommunications and audio-visual technology had strong growth, with the annualized growth rate surpassing 6%. In contrast, patent applications in the field of biotechnology have gradually decreased over the same period.

Medical technology accounted for the largest share of foreign-oriented patent families for Australia, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The largest number of foreign-oriented families originating from France and Germany were in the field of transport.

In the field of telecommunications, applicants from Finland, Sweden, Republic of Korea and China have an above average concentration of foreign-oriented patent families. Applicants from Singapore and the Republic of Korea have a high concentration of foreign-oriented patent families in semiconductors. Applicants from European countries have an above-average concentration in the transport and engines, pumps and turbines fields.

For the first time, a Chinese company (Huawei Technology) topped the list of applicants with the highest number of PCT filings. Panasonic Corporation (Japan) and Philips (Netherlands) were ranked second and third. US universities dominated the list of top PCT applicants for the university sector. The University of California filed 345 PCT applications. Tokyo, Seoul National, Imperial College and Osaka are the four non-US universities in the top 20 list."

All these findings may be viewed to imply something to various businesses and innovators.  To a business located just about anywhere in the world which is looking to protect their IP interests in markets around the world the first finding on the offices with the most non-resident patent filings may imply that these five are top priorities for filing new patents going by the general trend of others. Based on this report they may want to initially file patent applications within these markets to start off with and then review the other countries which accept less than 20% of the total applications.

Similarly, a business or innovator working within the telecommunications technology space, may want to first protect their IP in countries like Finland, Sweden, Korea and China being above average concentration of foreign-oriented patent families. The same report also implies that there could be a much greater potential for licensing patents within these countries for anyone holding patents for telecommunications technology and displays revenue opportunities in these countries for their innovations.

The WIPO database holds a wealth of information which could be extremely valuable for smarter well informed decision making for businesses. This particular report shed some light on what is going in general with IP around the world. A macro view so to speak but there is so much more the data can tell with regards to highly specific areas of interest. With the right analysis software tools you can look into useful facts that pertain directly to your area of interest and gather intelligence that helps make better decisions. The database of over 63 million patents which are already in force around the world is your ocean of data to explore. It’s up to each one to discover what are the indicators they would like to track based on their IP intelligence needs

        

Universities in the US encourage researchers with innovative minds to pursure their inventions and invest into patenting promising inventions expecting to generate profits by licensing the developed technology to interested companies. The technology transfer offices of the universities usually get many invention ideas from their researchers and have to decide which ones to invest further time and resources into. Many have already build valuable patent portfolios as a result of academic research and innovations which have become continuous sources of licensing revenue most of which is a lot more that research and legal investments made and so is used to further catalyze the innovation assessment and investment process. Here is an excerpt published by Forbes in a 2008 article on Stanford University:

Stanford University's fertile breeding ground for breakthrough technology may have spawned the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Google, but little Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., really knows how to get serious returns on its research and development.

To wit: In 2006, the school took in $4.5 million in research-related income (including licensing revenue and returns on equity stakes in start-ups) while shelling out $28 million on research--a 16% yield. That same year, Stanford pulled in $62 million against a $700 million investment; return on investment (ROI): 8.7%.

While perhaps thousands of universities globally develop valuable IP during the course of their academic research, very few file patents to protect it and fewer still are able to effectively capitalize by licensing their patents. Many US universities hold multiple patents that have failed to find licensees. Many of these are presently marketed by publishing invention details in journals, industry and trade newsletters, conference magazines (AUTM), using agents or brokers. While the culture of investing in research and filing patents has developed and matured in many US universities, being able to spot revenue opportunities within the patent portfolios already held by universities can be accelerated with strong patent analysis support. Much of similar kind of analysis is undertaken by Patent Licensing and Enforcement Agencies (See previous blog) and IP brokers.

Many universities expect not all their patents will be licensed. In fact most rely on a few blockbuster patents to bring home the revenue. Usually only 0.6% of licenses generate in excess of $1,000,000 in annual royalties.

Clearly there is need for universities to be more aggressive on the patent portfolios held by them. Assertive licensing and identification of infringers is important. However a change in research approach is required and universities need to analyze the technology areas their inventions lie in and gather data that can be used to back  their assertive licensing strategies. By improving their internal  patent analysis activities, universities can:

• Understand the market place and discover licensing opportunities and spaces in the market for research and technology even before filing for patents
•  Discovering licensing revenue opportunities and spotting companies that are infringing their IP or those who would like to

In short, these universities can use IP intelligence to work smarter , make fewer more lucrative investments in research, targeting select research areas, knowing where the opportunities lie and filing for patents specifically for IP which they are more certain will yield revenues. Good analysis will effectively help achieve better ROI on their IP investments. Even if a small percentage of the Universities out there follow in the footsteps of the those with large patent licensing revenues, the impact will be big. Only time will tell if they do.